Communication, Commitment & Trust, Essay Example

Executive Summary

Major problems within Medictest evolved due to departmental separation and a laissez-faire attitude by supervisors. Impending structural changes, while focusing on the company’s profits vs. costs, did irreparable damage to their schematic by emphasizing control of the situation over proper communication and trust. While proper protocol was followed by merging departments such as testing centres, billing and communication, and by keeping supervisors whose role proved irreplaceable there was a lack of communication in the overall time line during these mergers. Structural change in the company was expected for two years prior to the mergers and lay offs, but it wasn’t until six months prior to this “Black Day” that any action was perceived. Even when structural changes were imminent, top supervisors were left in the dark as to whether or not they would maintain their current status of employment because the company wanted to keep the situation manageable. This culture of isolation pervaded through each department as employees began to spread rumors about not only what supervisors would be let go, but what divisions through acquisitions and mergers and even going so far as to state that the entire laboratory was in jeopardy of losing its place among the corporation (as rumors relentlessly spread about a new, and closer, laboratory in London replacing them).

A strong suggestion for amendable resolutions is suggested through face-to-face communication (made more effective through one-on-one between supervisors, management, and employees) as well as transparent maneuvers in dealing with lay-offs of massive magnitude (as is the case with Medictest).

Introduction

Communication is prediction tool as to how well a company will or can function between company employees and the company (Zeffane, 2001, p. 78). Furthermore, leadership within the framework of a company leads to an overall definition of corporate cultural trends that shape the nature and efficacy of “corporate communication” (p. 78), which in turn directly effects whether or not a company has a trusting culture and therefore a productive workforce. This points to a cyclical pattern that speaks to the relationship between employee and management. Medictest decided to change the structural hierarchy and in so doing implemented a plan in which supervisors were laid off and the company sought departmental merger through somewhat poor communicative skills. This departmental merger was the outcome of a need to reduce costs and change the current company’s structure (Medictest, 1994, p. 3).

Case Findings

Jean Kelly was given a few months to report back to her supervisors on the “current supervisory structure and develop a revised one that would cut down on costs and facilitate new goals of empowerment” (Medictest, 1994, p. 3).

The supervisory structure of the company had implemented a team that worked interdependently: meaning that they had obfuscated the need to meet on a regular basis (Medictest, 1994, p. 3) which in turn could be a predicator of poor internal communication in the company. There was a loss of “connection” between departments according to Kelly. Thus, a new supervisory team would exhibit key factors that Kelly believed to be intrinsic to guide the company down a more profitable and efficient path such as “responsibility and leadership” (Medictest, 1994, p. 3). Kelly’s new leaders would exhibit “core technical competency” (p. 3), and “appropriate leadership skills” (p. 3) that would enable the company to pursue and execute “new objectives” (p. 3). Kelly’s implementation of her plan was dissected into three choices for supervisors in which they could play an active role in her new design, help in “fine tuning” it, or simply be told when it was done and what to do next. All of them chose the third option.

Poor communication lead to poor working relationships. For the past two years, these leaders new about upcoming changes that would effect their jobs in some capacity. Six months ago they new that these changes would be structural and their positions would be directly effected by any decisions. When they were not told about forthcoming decisions even after changes began to take place, rumors began to spread and anxiety levels increased, thereby increasing job performances on all levels (Medictest, 1994, p. 3-4). The supervisors were left in the dark as to what particular way their jobs would be affected as they “reasoned whether or not their style of leadership would be one of those desired for the new roles” (Medictest, 1994, p. 4).

Kelly conducted one-on-one interviews with the supervisors in which some revealed to her their willingness to leave the company based on their questions about severance packages and retirement. In further meetings with the supervisors, Kelly had to be diligent about her subtle approaches because the supervisors took her actions or non-actions as signals as to her internal decision-making process. For instance, when Kelly had to delegate meetings in her absence, her chosen supervisor was looked upon as ahead of the pack. Kelly even had to be careful with whom she made eye contact during these meetings because the slightest offense could be taken as a signal that the supervisor had already lost their job in Kelly’s eyes. Such lack of deftness could be construed as poor communication on a verbal as well as a nonverbal front.

This poor communication pervaded the company as “great lengths had been taken by management to prevent staff members…from knowing about the pending structural changes, in order to keep the situation manageable for the supervisors” (Medictest, 1994, p. 4). These lengths however did not suffice as within a matter of weeks supporting staff found out about the structural changes in supervision and thus anxiety and rumors spread throughout the company as employees debated and focused on whether or not the “right supervisors” ” (Medictest, 1994, p. 4) would be picked to stay with the company. The rumors exacerbated when knowledge about a new laboratory opening in London could mean the end of the Sarnia laboratory and thus structural changes could be company-wide.

Kelly’s conglomeration of departments and supervisors such as her streamlined decision of combining courier and collection centres staff under one supervisor (as opposed to the four it had previously been answerable to), merging Test Centres 1 and 2 staff, merging Test Centres 4 and 5, linking the Customer Service Department with Centres 1 and 2, separating billing from Customer Service (to ensure that billing was being handled with more aplomb due to its potential for mistakes and therefore inefficiency), all of which “reduced the number of supervisory positions to 5” (Medictest, 1994, p. 5). While accomplishing these new structural changes Kelly found that it “was difficult to evaluate the supervisors without disclosing any information” (p. 5). Kelly kept her decisions a secret intending the future of the company should have a smooth and natural transition with the supervisor’s lay-off.

Evaluation of Alternative Solutions

There was an obvious lack of communication within Medictest that could be properly defined as a culture of isolation. Communication is intrinsic to a company because it fosters trust and without trust the “managers’ communication themes such as dominance, coercive power, lack of willingness to listen, lackof support or empathy and face threat, could affect the perceptions of ‘in-groupness’ which ultimately erode thelevel of trust” Zeffane, 2001, p. 79). Without trust companies are more likely to fail because their employees feel that their work, ideas, and creativity aren’t valued (Mehta et al., 2011, p. 4). So, not only is communication important for Medictest, but the quality of that communication in fostering working relationships during a lay off that include special attention to employees’ significance (Zeffane, 2001, p. 79). Proper communication takes a lot of time, effort and because of this, it may not be cost effective to hold one-on-one, face-to-face meetings. However, it must not be understated that employees benefit from proper communication (especially during high anxiety such as lay offs) because improper communication fosters mistrust in managers and breeds antisocial organization (Zeffane, 2001, p. 79).

Bayardo et al (2013), state that “Effective communication and forging close relationships with workers are key tools to keep the workers informed about the changes occurring in their firm and to encourage them to strive to achieve the firm’s objectives and to integrate them into their own” (p. 8). This communication must be accurate so as to derail any rumors. The communication must also avoid “generating mistrust” and “Likewise, the communication must be objective, truthful, and impartial, and timely, in other words transmitted at the right time” (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 9). A company’s main objective when facing a massive layoff is curtailing rumors (which can be poisonous to effective business tactics) and creating a climate of trust as Zeffane (2001) states, “Regression analysis revealed thatperceived effectiveness of communication between management and employees and commitment & pride inworking for the company were overwhelmingly the most influential factors affecting the likelihood of trust climates and trust in Management” (p. 77-78).

Thus when managers are downsizing they should take time to personally tell employees about everything dealing with the upcoming lay offs. Employees will then show higher levels of trust in their management (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 9). This internal communication is intrinsic as it provides the basis of a working relationship between superior and workers and it is necessary to have trust be an integral part of that relationship (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 10).When downsizing a company the best implementation strategy is to conduct communication face-to-face (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 11).  This means that downsizing and further communication should not be done through video, text, phone calls, or emails. Despite the efficacy of the above-mentioned means of communication, showing a face-to-face strategy shows invested interest in the remaining workers and instills a premise of faith the company has in their remaining workers. This face-to-face concept also excludes “mass meetings” (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 11) in which employees are informed about major overhaul in downsizing a company in a massive group setting. This makes the communication impersonal when dealing with something so obviously personal.

Two things that are important when downsizing, and properly communicating downsizing to workers are job satisfaction and organizational commitment “because the human element is essential for the correct functioning of the organization” (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 12). Job satisfaction is how an employee feels on a physical and psychological way. This in turn relates to how well an employee will function at their job according to different subjective factors such as environment, pay, camaraderie, and feelings of pleasure in achieving success and purpose with their own performance.

When mentioning good communication within a framework of a company, job satisfaction becomes important to that communication paradigm because “when an employee is informed they will have a more positive attitude and be willing to contribute to help achieve the objectives of the changes taking place in the firm (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 11-12). When downsizing it’s important to know that remaining employees are committed to the company; this is proven through an individual’s identity with the organization. This identity becomes validated if trust is renewed in a company who just laid off long time workers from supervisory positions (for how can an employee trust a company that fires top executives, demands their workload to be placed on the remaining executives, and still not increase those remaining employees pay all in the name of profit margins?). This makes downsizing survivor’s have a low level of commitment to a company (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 12). A strong working relationship must be instituted in order to gain survivor’s trust. This occurs with a strong communication foundation in the company. Thus, maintaining a working organization means delving into a survivor’s psychological state of being, or “represents the degree to which the employee identifies with and is involved in their organization” (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 12). This means that a manager must assess the level of loyalty a survivor has, or their level of organizational commitment. This is further enhanced through the theory that a survivor will stay with a company out of a sense of loyalty to that company or normative commitment (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 12) that occurs when an employee feels a familial sense of loyalty to a company, identifying a company as part of their family.

A survivor’s decision is also based on something Bayardo et al., (2013) refer to as “continuance commitment” (p. 13) or the cost of changing jobs mid-career. A manager must curtail an employee’s negative associations with downsizing such as unfairness, poor communication in going about downsizing, insufficient training when the “downsizing starts” (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 13), future worries with the company (e.g. job security), and the common held belief (and often true belief) that along with downsizing survivor’s workload increases after massive layoffs (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 13). When layoffs do occur it is vital for the manager to properly communicate with survivors what is to be expected for the company, for the survivors, and for the future. When this is properly communicated an employees level of trust or normative commitment are instilled (Bayardo et al., 2013, p. 13). Researchers have shown that there’s a strong bond in place between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Conclusion

The proper communication method for Medictest should be one that implements face-to-face communication and probably one-on-one communication. Not informing the company about lay offs and whether or not their jobs are safe propagates rumors that destroy moral and lead to high anxiety levels. Curtailing such things should be a major part any action plan. This in turn leads to employee trust that is gained through a forthright and transparent strategy. When trust is implemented (through good communication) this in turn fosters feelings of loyalty from employees that in turn directly benefits profits, and margins of success.

Recommended Plan of Action

To ensure a stable and profitable company internal communication becomes essential. Keeping production supervisors ware of what is happening at every step benefits all levels of employees in the company. This also will help in preventing rumors that lead to anxiety as rumors begin as a result of lack of information. Employees will trust their leader is their leader is forthright with their information and they demonstrate “consistent, predictable, coherent and transparent actions on their part” (Mehta et al., 2011, p. 4) which was not the case with Kelly. A plan of action would benefit from the inclusion of the above-stated elements. Lay off decisions and communication about these decisions needs to be made by the manager who must talk about these changes as early on as possible. Kelly knew about the changes two years prior to them being made and had a more formulated plan six months prior to lay offs. Six months prior to lay offs when an exact plan was made should have been when face-to-face conversations were being made. The manager should also make further restructuring and upgrading plans that the company wants to address after consultation with CEOs. Efficiency reports by each Centre and lab should be made to the manager in order to effectively determine each centre’s efficacy in the new strategically made departments.  Long term plans should be put in place as to any future lay offs and the severance packages available.

Evaluation of the Implemented Solution

The solution stated above would benefit from having employee input an integral part of any future strategically made plans. A line of communication should be fostered between employees and human resource departments so that any problems found in the mergers and lay offs can be directly addressed. As a matter of fact, there should be a company department within human resources that deals directly with things like complaints, evaluations, and considerations for improvement made by and for employees. This further ensures that they feel as though their opinions are valuable and builds upon the employee/company trust that makes a system of mergers work so well. This new department should have monthly status reports or the merger and evaluate the mood and climate of employees through this transition for the first year on a month-to-month basis and then every six months afterwards for up to three years.

References

Bayardo, J. M., Reche, F. M., & Cabada, M. L. (2013). Communication as a factor in the success of downsizing. European Scientific Journal 9(29), 7-25.

Linton, M. (1994). Medictest laboratories. IVEY, 2-7.

Mehta, D., Mehta, N., & Mishra, R. (2011). Overcoming recession through effective Business communication approaches. Oeconomics 3(2), 2-9.

Zeffane, R. (June 2011). Communication, commitment & trust: exploring the triad. International Journal of Business and Management, 6(6), 77-87.